That wasn’t an explicit no. It was a gray area, and Lucy wouldn’t lie on the stand, but Loretta was self-medicating and very sick. “I think Loretta knows exactly where Ana de la Rosa is, or has a good idea. I want to question her as soon as the doctor clears her.” Or before, if Lucy could get away with it.
“Because she let you into the house, if you see anything in the open, go for it. But don’t tear the place apart. I’ll contact Lopez in the local RA and ask them to work on a warrant. You call Villines, get a guard on Martinez, see what information he has for us. Call Zach and have him run this Angelo Zapelli, as well as the father. He may be able to get a procedural warrant to trace his GPS. Then send me a nuts and bolts report. I gotta go, the AUSA needs me.” He hung up.
Lucy conveyed the information to Nate and sent an email to Zach about Zapelli. They left Siobhan outside and walked through the house, both of them wearing gloves. They looked carefully, but didn’t open drawers or toss any furniture.
This was an older woman. If she kept a record, where would she keep it? A journal? An address book? Lucy looked around for a desk. There was a small stationary desk in the dining room. She itched to go through the drawer, but she didn’t. Still, the desk was cluttered, and there were slots at the top of the desk, like an old-fashioned post office. Everything in the slots was in the open. She looked at the mail—bills, some paid, some unpaid, sorted in different slots. An address book—with names and addresses. She flipped through it, but nothing jumped out at her.
There was a book that appeared to be tax records, but when Lucy opened it, she saw that it was a list of dates with notations.
August 2 5:15 p.m. Boy 6 lbs 6 oz 20 in Cristina
October 4 3:30 a.m. Girl 5 lbs 14 oz 19 in Joy
December 24 2:10 p.m. Boy 7 lbs 12 oz 20 in Marisol
There were other notations in each entry, as to the health of the baby and the mother. But Lucy couldn’t see anything. She had to get out of here. Clutching the book, she ran outside, into the humid air. But it was better than the house. Better than the death that surrounded it. Better than knowing what had been going on for more than two years.
Marisol. Elizabeth wasn’t Marisol’s first baby.
It could have been a different Marisol, except that Siobhan had been looking for the sisters for two years. Loretta had been delivering babies for two years. Twenty-five months, according to this book.
Nate came out of the house and said, “Hey, you okay?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
He was going to push it, so she cleared her throat and showed him the book. “Names, dates, births.”
He stared. “This is so fucked.” He put the book into an evidence bag, signed and sealed it. Something crossed his face
“Nate—”
“I was adopted,” he said suddenly.
“You know that is completely different.”
He stared at Loretta’s house, but didn’t appear to be looking at any one thing. “I found my birth mother.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it—”
He shook his head. “I love my parents. They were good people. They had my older sister—Jenny. She’s a biologist for a huge pharmaceutical company. Very smart and nerdy.” He smiled. “Anyway, she’s twelve years older than me. They tried for years to have another baby, but my mom had three miscarriages. Jenny had been a difficult pregnancy, I guess. They had been trying to adopt for more than a decade. They went through background checks, medical exams, psych exams—because they were good people. They did it the right way. And by the time they got approved, the counselor said that they may not end up with an infant because they were nearly forty.” He scowled. “They ended up going through a church-run group. All legitimate. My biological mother was sixteen, her boyfriend got her pregnant. She picked my parents out of over one hundred couples who wanted to adopt. She didn’t know their names, just saw their pictures, their facts, and letters that they each wrote about why they wanted to adopt.”
“They love you and wanted you.”
“I know that.”
“What happened when you found her?”
“I found her, I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. She died of a drug overdose when she was twenty-three in Chicago. She was pregnant at the time. I got the file from the coroner’s office a few years ago. After she had me she ran away from home, got mixed up with lowlifes, started doing hard drugs, and died from it after prostituting herself to feed her drug habit.”
Lucy had nothing to say. Nate wasn’t a big talker, and she hadn’t realized how difficult this case was for him. She’d only been thinking about herself, the fact that she couldn’t have children, that she’d been raped, not that other people had other stories no less powerful.
“I didn’t mean to dump that on you.”
“I’m glad you did—you needed to get it out.”
“You keep things bottled up, too.”
“But I have Sean to talk to. And you know, if you ever need to talk to anyone, we’re here.”